


i remember you and me (yeah, I remember everything)

by onedamnangryfrog



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Growing Up Together, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29108055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedamnangryfrog/pseuds/onedamnangryfrog
Summary: Shane moves to LA for a job and finds that his past is there to meet him.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	i remember you and me (yeah, I remember everything)

**Author's Note:**

> Idea initially inspired by the song [Little League by Conan Gray](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmZTq7frkDQ), and the title is from the song as well. Shane and Ryan are the same age here, and they grew up together in Illinois. Asterisks indicate scene breaks, italics indicate a flashback scene.
> 
> As always, the biggest love to zaphodthebb for being the best friend, beta and cheerleader a person could ever hope to have. I doubt I could write a word without her holding my hand.
> 
> Enjoy!

Shane feels awkward walking through the new space that’s frenzied with sound and activity. People stare when they catch sight of him, conspicuous as one of the tallest people in the room as always (although he’s pleasantly surprised to see a couple of others who are near his height). He’s trying to ignore them and listen to the voice of the person speaking to him, but his eyes are still nervously scanning the space that’s so full of distractions.

Suddenly, he stops dead in his tracks, barely registering when someone walking behind him slams into his back, angrily murmuring, “Jesus, watch where you’re going, dude,” as they walk away. His heart is pounding in his ears, and he’s finding it hard to breathe. His feet feel like they’re made of lead as he tries to keep walking, to act normally.

Out of all the places in the world he could have ended up, how could this have happened? How had Ryan Bergara just walked back into his life?

***

_Shane guesses from the yelling that he’s missed an opportunity to contribute yet again. He’s sitting on the ground staring off into space, trying to find the right word to fill in a blank in a song he’s been writing in his head since the start of the game. He hears angry voices yelling his last name and mumbling curse words low enough that the adults around can’t hear. Then, one defiant voice, angry in a different way than the others. He looks up._

_  
_ _“Hey, shut up! He doesn’t even wanna play, his folks are making him. Leave him alone.”_

_It’s Ryan, of course. His best friend, his protector whenever he deems it necessary--probably more often than he should. Shane supposes that he should feel embarrassed by the whole thing--his failure to meet expectations, his unwillingness to defend himself. He’s mostly just happy that someone’s there to stand up for him. Happy that someone is Ryan, smaller than the others but twice as fierce._

_“C’mon Shane, game’s over. Let’s go.”_

_Ryan reaches out his hand to help Shane up off the ground. He takes it gratefully, and they walk away together, hands joined for a brief few seconds before Shane forces himself to let go, ashamed and afraid of the feelings he feels more and more now when he’s with Ryan._

***

Just when Shane’s heartbeat has slowed and he’s drawing full breaths again, confident that he’s somehow avoided Ryan’s notice, he finds himself being walked in Ryan’s direction. Because life is cruel and unfair, obviously. As they draw closer, he resigns himself to the fact that it’s not a coincidence, that he’s literally being walked right to Ryan, and wills himself to maintain any level of composure.

“This is Ryan Bergara. Ryan, this is Shane Madej, a new intern. You guys have a similar background, you’re even from the same area! You should have a lot to talk about.”

Well, this is it--the moment where they get to decide how they’re going to play this. Shane reluctantly opts to let Ryan make the call. He was here first, Shane will just have to go along with whatever he decides. He does find a little gratification in the small tells that Ryan’s as nervous as he is, things a person might not notice if they hadn’t known Ryan as long as Shane has. Had.

Ryan smiles. Not one of his real smiles, wide and lighting up his whole face, blindingly bright. A polite smile for someone you just met, someone you don’t know at all. He reaches out for a handshake, bizarrely formal. “Nice to meet you, Shane, welcome.”

Shane’s heart clenches, and he tries not to wince as he shakes Ryan’s hand, greets him impersonally. It hurts even more deeply than he could have imagined. He wonders how the hell he’s going to do this.

***

_“What do you think you’re going to do here, Shane? Don’t treat me like I’m the bad guy for actually wanting to go where I can follow my dreams instead of staying home where it’s safe.”_

_Shane recoils as if he’s been punched, face twisted with hurt and rage. “Fuck you, Ryan! The film industry isn’t limited to LA, there’s plenty going on in Chicago. Don’t you dare act like this is the only option and I’m just too stupid to see it.”_

_The thing was, Ryan had said for years that he’d never leave home, and Shane had wanted to believe him. But he’d said it less and less as time had gone on, and Shane had always felt like Ryan was destined for bigger things. The biggest things. He could do anything--talented enough to work behind a camera, handsome enough to work in front of it. More and more over the years, Shane felt like he couldn’t keep up, could only either hold Ryan back or let him go. But now that they’d reached the moment where the rubber finally met the road, Shane couldn’t take it. He wanted Ryan to choose him, choose their friendship, no matter what the cost, even when Shane knew he wouldn’t, and probably shouldn’t._

_Even when Shane knew that they’d never be everything he wanted them to be to each other, he just couldn’t take the thought of not having Ryan, his best friend, in his life in any way he could._

_“Come on, Shane. You can come with me, we can do the scary thing together. Home will always be here for us to come back to.”_

_“I can’t, Ryan. I didn’t even apply anywhere but here. It’s too late. You’ll have to stay or go without me.”_

_“Jesus, Shane, I can’t believe you weren’t even willing to try. Fine. I guess I’ll see you around.”_

_As he watches Ryan storm away, Shane knows that this is the thing that ends their lifelong friendship. It still guts him when he finds out secondhand that Ryan will be attending his first choice school, half the country away. And in no time, he’s just gone. No text, not even a chance to drive him to the airport and have an awkward goodbye, nothing to remember him by other than that awful last fight, blocking all the years of memories of when things were good._

***

Things go better than Shane could have hoped, all things considered. He does whatever various bizarre things he’s tasked with throughout the day. He goes home to an apartment that he shares with strangers he makes no attempt to know, eating takeout for dinner every night in his room, going to bed early with nothing else to do and no one to tell him not to. 

He’s forced to work with Ryan occasionally, and they somehow both handle it like adults. Sometimes they even manage to make each other laugh. Sometimes it doesn’t even make Shane’s chest feel like it’s going to crack open when he hears Ryan’s wheezing laugh, sees that real smile that lights up his whole face. 

Shane tries to turn down every attempt from his coworkers to draw him into their after work get-togethers, but after saying no for long enough, it starts to feel like the pressure is more annoying than giving into it would be. 

So he finds himself in a loud, crowded bar at the end of a long table filled with his coworkers in various states of inebriation. He’s trying to be a part of things, but also to stay sober enough not to reveal anything real about himself in the process. 

Ryan, of course, is there, and he clearly has no such reservations. He’s grinning and laughing loudly at every joke, gesturing wildly as he tells stories, and when a song that he’s clearly a fan of begins to play, he shouts jubilantly and gets up to dance, reaching out both of his hands to two of their coworkers to come along with him.

The girls crowd him in and he’s clearly having the time of his life dancing with them. Shane gets up and walks to the bar to order another drink he probably shouldn’t have, tries and utterly fails not to look their way. They continue until the music slows, switching to a song from when he and Ryan were in high school.

In his mind, Shane’s back in the passenger seat of Ryan’s shitty car, fighting the urge to reach over and grab his hand, to tell him everything he feels for him. To snap himself out of the flashback, Shane orders a shot, downs it with a wince, then walks back to the table with his beer. Ryan’s made it back to the table, and Shane can practically feel his eyes on him. He doesn’t know what to do with that, so he tries his best to ignore it.

They still haven’t said a word in all these months, not even to each other, about their past, their whole childhoods spent together. They treat each other like strangers, and it’s hard for Shane to decide whether it’s worse to deny everything they ever were to each other than it would be to just confront it. The alcohol and the weight of Ryan’s eyes on him are only making it harder. He wonders which one of them will be the first to break.

Shane decides it won’t be him, at least not tonight. He makes his excuses to the table and walks outside to get some air and order an Uber -- the bar’s not too far a walk from his apartment, but even as a man over six feet tall, it doesn’t feel safe at this time of night. He’s staring down at his phone, scrolling through his Twitter feed, when he sees someone walking up beside him in his peripheral vision. It’s Ryan, because of course it is. He’d been moments from a clean getaway.

“Hey Shane.” Ryan says, and it’s amazing how just two words can sound so painfully awkward.

Shane makes himself look up from his phone because he is an adult and he can handle a simple conversation, even with the man who used to be his best friend and is still, unfortunately, the love of his life. For the purposes of this interaction, they’re just coworkers, the role Ryan had assigned them when he’d shown no signs of knowing Shane back on that first day at work.

“Hey Ryan, what’s up?” He keeps his voice neutral, bland, as if he doesn’t care what the answer is, when his heart is racing at the possibilities of why Ryan followed him out here. Because he obviously did, the timing is too close to be coincidental, and Ryan always was about as subtle as a brick to the head.

“Shane, man, I’ve been meaning to --” Ryan begins. Suddenly, Shane finds himself saved by the arrival of his Uber.

“Sorry, this is me, gotta get going. See you at work, man.”

Shane feels both intensely relieved and like a fucking coward as he rides away, watching Ryan through the window until he walks back into the bar.

Shane falls into bed with his clothes on as soon as he makes it home and doesn’t get up until the following afternoon.

***

It’s the most ridiculous moment that breaks the illusion, exposes their lies of omission. Ryan’s telling a story on one of the days where Shane ended up working with him, and offhand, as if they haven’t had months go by without a mention of their childhoods, Ryan ends a sentence with “you should ask Shane to tell you that story, though, he always told it better.”

Shane looks up, eyes wide in a way that he’d probably consider comical if it were happening to someone else, if he were watching an unfortunate character in a movie. 

After a second, as if cogs have been turning and the answer’s suddenly revealed itself, one of their coworkers looks up at him and asks, “wait a minute--you’re _the_ Shane?” 

And if Shane had thought he was surprised a moment ago, it was nothing compared to what he’s feeling right now. Ryan had talked about him with their coworkers? What did that even mean, _the_ Shane? The Shane who was Ryan’s best friend until he was too chickenshit to give up his life and move across the country? Or was he just the Shane who Ryan had a lot of old stories about but had moved on from when he’d found a better option?

Shane does his best to feign nonchalance when he answers. “Uh, I guess I am?”

He apparently doesn’t nail it; they look embarrassed, sorry to have asked. The subject is dropped, and after a few tense moments, things return to relative normalcy.

That is, until the end of the day, when everyone else has gone and left Shane and Ryan to awkwardly walk to the parking lot together, a loaded silence between them. Shane doesn’t let it last long, stopping mid-step and turning to look at Ryan.

“Just what the fuck was that earlier?”

Ryan has the audacity to look surprised--hurt, even. “What do you mean?”  
  


“What do I mean? Seriously? We’ve been doing this ‘pretend we’re strangers’ bit for months, Ryan. You’re the one who made that call. Now all of a sudden you’re putting me on the spot in front of everyone?”

Ryan looks down at the ground now--defeated? Ashamed? He’s harder for Shane to read now than he’d ever been in the past.

  
“I don’t know, Shane, I fucked up. I used to talk about you all the time before you got here. I didn’t always use your name, but I told so many stories about you. It’s hard to break the habit. And with you standing there, I guess I got caught up in it, and it just came out.”

Shane sighs. “It’s okay, Ry,” He winces briefly after using the nickname that he hasn’t spoken in years. Ryan’s clearly not the only one getting caught up in their past. “I just thought when you never said anything that you wanted us to start things over here, pretend the past never happened. It took me by surprise.”

Ryan looks up at Shane, big-eyed and earnest as ever. “Shane, I never wanted to forget anything that happened back then. I panicked when I saw you that first day here. You never tried to talk to me again after the fight, so I tried to do what I thought you would want. I didn’t want to make things harder for you.”

“Things were always going to be hard for me being here with you, Ryan.”

Ryan looks wounded, and Shane kind of hates how he can’t handle that, how he needs to try to fix it. “I don’t mean that however you’re thinking. It’s just--seeing you after all this time, ending up right where you were, knowing that I could’ve been here with you all along if I’d just listened, just been brave enough-” He trails off, raking his hand over his face. He’s said too much, needs to shut up and forget about it before he goes too far, admits the whole truth.

Ryan reaches up and grabs Shane’s wrist, stopping him from aggressively rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses. Shane’s too shocked by the intimate contact to even try to pull away. “Shane, it’s okay. We both fucked things up back then. It was already too late by the time we had the fight, but I didn’t try hard enough before that, didn’t do enough to help you see how it could’ve worked.”

“Ryan, it’s not your fault that I didn’t believe in myself enough to take that chance. You were right, being close to home felt safe, so that’s what I clung to. And what did it get me? Years of dead-end jobs until I finally got desperate enough for a change to try it your way. Years I could have gone through with my best friend, even if things were still hard.”

“You can’t punish yourself for what you did then, Shane. It’s over and done. But somehow we still ended up in the same place, and we can be friends again, right?” Ryan looks a little lost and unsure, like he worries what Shane’s answer might be, that he might be reading things wrong.

Shane sighs heavily. “Of course we can be friends again, Ry, if that’s what you want. Even trying to pretend we were nothing to each other, it’s felt so good to make you laugh again.” He can’t help wincing and looking down at the ground. He's being way too honest, getting too close to admitting everything and really blowing up this thing between them.

Ryan visibly takes a deep breath. “Of course I wanna be friends again. But Shane, there’s more, and I don’t know if you wanna hear it.”

Shane looks up from the ground and into Ryan’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“So when I got to college, I had this roommate. I really needed someone to lean on without you there, and he was around all the time. We got close. I just thought we were really great friends--until the day we were watching movies together in my room, and he kissed me.” 

Shane tries not to visibly react but can’t help the frisson of jealousy he feels, ridiculous and stupid as it is. He lets Ryan continue.

“It’s not like I had no idea it was a thing I could have been before that, but I guess that was my big queer awakening. Obviously it didn’t last between us, but I’ve dated a few guys since.”

Shane’s trying to let Ryan land this plane without assuming the destination, but he’s on the edge of his seat wondering if this could possibly be going where it feels like it could be.

“Anyway, I guess I said all that to say that since I saw you again, I’ve been looking back and wondering if I missed something between us back then. And if not, if there could be something new between us now?” Ryan’s blushing, rubbing at the back of his neck the way he always has when he gets nervous.

Shane can’t help the awkward laughter that bubbles up, hopes Ryan doesn’t take it the wrong way before he can explain himself. “Ry, I’ve been completely gone for you since we were twelve. I always tried to push it down because I never wanted to ruin things between us. So yeah, you definitely missed something between us, at least on my end.”

Ryan’s eyes are huge as he stares at Shane. “And now?” His voice is barely above a whisper, like he’s afraid to break the bubble of the moment.

“I’ve spent enough time feeling pathetic about it, so if we’re being honest, it never went away for me. I’ve tried dating over the years, but they never had a chance, Ry. They couldn’t be you.” Shane can’t help blushing, feeling like such a cliche, but if there was ever a moment for it, it’s now.

“Jesus, Shane. That feels like a lot to live up to.”

Shane rolls his eyes dramatically. “I literally just said it’s always been you, you dipshit. Since we were kids. Nothing to live up to when all I ever wanted was you.”

Ryan’s grinning now as he leans up, hand curling around the back of Shane’s neck to pull him down to meet him, and they’re kissing, easy as anything. It’s more than Shane had ever let himself hope for, but now that it’s actually happening, he’s fully in the moment. 

He wraps his arms around Ryan to pull him closer. They haven’t had their arms around each other since they were kids, back when it didn’t yet feel weird or wrong. Physically, it couldn’t feel more different, but emotionally, Ryan is Shane’s home, always has been. The solid strength of him now feels even more grounding. When they finally break the kiss, Ryan presses his face into Shane’s chest. Shane kisses the top of his head, running his fingers through his hair.

It’s Ryan who breaks the silence, words muffled from where he’s still pressed against Shane’s chest. “So, was it everything you imagined?”

Shane laughs into his hair. “Better. It's real this time. I usually would be waking up right about now.”

“Nope, you’re not asleep this time. We could find our way to a bed, though, if you wanted?” It’s about as corny and clumsy a line as Shane’s heard, and he can’t help but laugh. Ryan’s smile as he looks up at him somehow conveys that he’s serious, but he could be kidding if Shane needs him to be.

Shane runs a hand through his already hopeless hair. “Not mine. I’ve got roommates who I’ve been pretending don’t exist the entire time I’ve lived here, and they probably wouldn’t appreciate an interruption of the status quo.”

“I’ve got my own place, so no need. Just don’t be surprised when it’s a mess.”  
  


“And why would I be the slightest bit surprised by that?”  
  


Ryan grins, shoves at Shane's shoulder and utters three words he hadn't even realized he'd been missing for all these years until he hears them again. “Shut up, Shane.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I literally made it all the way to the end and had to throw that phrase in. I've written things without it, but this isn't one of them. I LOVE CLICHES! I LOVE TROPES! This is my truth.
> 
> [find me on tumblr](https://onedamnangryfrog.tumblr.com/), I don't reblog shyan bc I'm fandom old and paranoid about watcher being on there, but I give likes and I love asks/messages!


End file.
